


hearts of queens

by simplecoffee



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Character Study, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 00:09:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20434784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplecoffee/pseuds/simplecoffee
Summary: She's back from Afghanistan a different woman, thinking about different things.





	hearts of queens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prosodiical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/gifts).

Tony's designed bras before. The sports ones, the luxe ones, the sports-luxe ones; the, uh, vapour-wear ones. Prosthetic ones, cosmetic ones, support for survivors. She's crawled through data and built and tested and maybe toyed with thoughts of flexible circuitry, smart fabrics. Stark Industries doesn't do fashion, except when fashion is engineering.

Which is nearly always, actually. Whether or not you have a power source embedded in your chest.

Howard wouldn't approve. Obie's made that very clear, as if she ever needed to hear it, the blow softened every time with pizza and the old piano. (As if she ever needed to hear what the news still tells her every morning: that the Stark heir should have been a son.) But then Howard did miss some things; he never did figure out that appearances, too, are a weapon.

Tony went to her stylist before she saw her doctor. Had the ragged ends of her hair cut right off, the rest blow-dried. It'll be a juicy talking point for the press, who've loved to go on about her luscious, cascading locks for years. So be it. She's tired of it, tired of carrying the feeling of it matted to her scalp. Tired of carrying the weight of so much water soaked into it that she can't breathe. Short hair it is.

And now the clothes.

She's come back changed. They all know that. Christine Everhart looked a million questions when she shut down SI's weapons wing, none of them about the business. Pepper stood by and watched, as always, pretending she hadn't teared up the moment she saw Tony's obnoxious face. (She needs to get that woman something for putting up with her.) But the point is she's come back changed, and she's not going to hide the arc reactor; thing's a part of her now, and it works, and she made it, and it's the reason she's alive. They don't have to know how much it hurts to be alive. To breathe and feel the metal rise and fall against your ribcage, sleep under its weight and in its light. Bathe, carefully, so carefully, while you heal around it. No, they're going to be curious, so they can look, and see a cool light, and Tony Stark giving no fucks, as ever, and life and the gossip columns can go back to normal. (Until she reveals her miniature reactor can power a whole lot more than just the thing that keeps her ticking.)

Support. She knows how silhouette works; knows the heft and weight of fabric like she knows the heft and weight of a gun. She knows how to make this bra work, and she knows how to sell it later - it'll work full well for people who've recently had heart surgery. Hell, she's one of those people, even if she's not telling on herself about that. She's already told JARVIS to whip up some prototypes, but she can't bring herself to try them yet; can't deal with the thought of pressure on her chest, any pressure at all. Days like this are getting fewer and further between as she heals, but it's slow and it's hard, and she has no one's arms to fall into as a distraction. Doesn't know what she'd do if she had.

She tinkers instead, and _makes_. She's always had that. Code for JARVIS' younger sister. New schematics for smart irrigation. Flight stabilizers for when she wants to take to the air again.

Oh yeah, she wants to take to the air again.

She flew out of Gulmira in a suit of armour. SI Tactical does bulletproof vests; SI Fashion does armour of a different kind. She's been armoured with perfect poise and a cutting tongue since she was three; armoured with audacity since she was sixteen. The best defence is a good offence. Red lipstick, sharp suits, fast cars, flowing dresses, strings of lovers. Mark II will be no different, only this time she has a purpose.

Support. While you're in the air, that comes from speed. Direction vectors stabilizing you, carrying you where you want to go. It doesn't hurt that the repulsors can set things on fire; Tony's in the mood for a little fire. She flew out of Gulmira and she'll fly the hell back, and she'll waste the men there who terrorize innocents.

\- She'll do it tomorrow. When she doesn't feel like her chest is exploding with every breath. Tonight she'll put on a bad-girl leather jacket and smile for the cameras at some event Obie's sending her to, and then she'll put on a softer smile for Pepper, give her the day off tomorrow, hope she won't be all that suspicious. Maybe she'll give Rhodey a call, and Rhodey will appear like an angel and stroke her hair and kiss her forehead, and not call her a genius or a warmonger or a whore. Maybe Rhodey will let her put her arms around her neck and kiss her deeply, like they used to do at MIT, or if she doesn't maybe she'll hold her head in her lap and let her talk while JARVIS works - like they used to do at MIT.

Support. There's something in her that's never known before Afghanistan how it feels. To work with a single purpose, to be covered, grounded, by a weight. She imagined, while forging, that it would be terrifying; not so. It felt like comfort, felt like truth, felt like a shelter that moved with her body, and now she feels the familiar tension in her arms and wrists and heart that tells her she can do better, tells her to make it again and again, make herself again and again until she's got it right.

This, at least, has not changed. The drive to make, after all these years. It's just that she's making for herself, now; not Howard, not Obie, not politicians who neither know nor care who's dying out there to keep them safe.

Tony finally knows what she has to do. And tomorrow, she's going for a ride.


End file.
